Terminal
by the Chronic Meltdown
Summary: Estelle doesn't know what she wants, really, but she knows what she can't stop thinking of. YuriEstelle, RitaEstelle.


**A/N: **Firstly, I detest YurixEstelle (it feels like incest to me), but I had to use it. I personally adore FlynnxYuri, and Ristelle.

Second, I had to do it. If you don't like the pairings, then I'm sorry. If you decide to read it anyway, try to go for the writing style, instead of the pairing. :D Things will work out better, that way. And if you don't like it, then I invite you to criticize.

I really think I did an okay job. Wrote it in Biology, today, after all, right in the middle of the section that explains how babies are actually parasites that suck the life out of you.

_Kidding._ Geez.

* * *

Terminal

_Estelle doesn't know what she wants, really, but she knows what she can't stop thinking of._

**vi.  
**  
In the beginning, she fits into the role of pampered, naïve noble like a glove. She knows nothing about the world, nothing about _living_, because she's never been alive. She's a princess trapped inside her castle, driving herself mad with stories of gallant knights and heroic acts of selflessness, with tales of valor and honor and girls in need of rescuing. Never does she find a fairytale about a charming boy in need of a brave maiden's aid. She questions this, does not agree with it, but keeps this to herself. The other nobles already view her as an outcast. They don't need another reason to make it worse.

She doesn't fit in. She's not meant to remain within that sphere. Greater things. She's meant for greater things. Still, she wants a knight to call her own. And there is a knight, but he's not the one she wants. He's not the one she won't be able to stop thinking of.

The next knight she meets is a dark knight. He crashes into her life with all the driving force of a hurricane, like a top spinning out of control across a smooth surface. In the beginning, he is maddening. He is a force outside her control, severing everything she believes in.

In the beginning, she relies on him, cannot stop thinking about him. He is a dark knight, a knight unlike any other but still just as chivalrous, still just as heroic, as selfless. He does what needs to be done, regardless of the consequences, and takes it upon himself to shoulder the burden.

This fascinates her. She is fascinated by him. She is convinced that he's the one she wants to be there, as the knight within her story, in her fairytale, with arms wide open.

As their journey continues, with the aid of a tiny, hammer-wielding knight that very much amuses her, they arrive at the town of Aspio, the Scholar's City. That's where she meets the mage. Mordio.

Rita Mordio.

It's funny. She had expected an old man.

But it isn't.

**v.**

Steady hands and a rapidly beating heart.

The dark knight tears through his enemy, slicing through it as though it were butter. He is caught in a deadly dance between life and death, and he is beautiful. He is graceful as he flips about in a deadly pirouette, his sword bloody, red splotches on his face. He is a survivor, and a protector, all in one package.

Estelle really likes him. She really does.

It's why she's casting spells, preventing harm to befall him, with Rita at her side.

_She and I work well together,_ she thinks, just as the mage lets loose a string of fireballs that rip the air apart.

The heat is scorching, making her face flush, and it's funny, really, how that's what ends the fight. The dark knight dusts himself off, and she wants to go congratulate him, but she's distracted. Rita's grinning, a little, and looking at her with wide green eyes –_beautiful eyes_, she thinks, absentmindedly – and her hand is raised in a gesture she recognizes.

She grins widely, for a brief moment forgetting about the knight. Her own hand reaches up to eagerly slap the mage's palm in a high five.

Then she remembers, her smile falters, and she pauses.

The driving force. The immovable object.

She feels herself slipping.

**iv.**

The first time they kiss, it is sweet. It is  
_(not)_  
everything she wanted it to be. It is wonderful, and slow, and the way he cups her face with his  
_(too)_  
coarse hands is enough to make her wonder what it would feel like. What would it feel like, anyway? To have his hands touch her elsewhere.

Her skin grows hot.

There is fire in the pit of her stomach, but it's making her sick.

This isn't what it's supposed to feel like.

**iii.**

She knows that something's wrong, but she doesn't know what it is. She's not sure what it is but she's sure what it has something to do with.

She doesn't know what she wants.

The dark knight is holding her hand, leading her towards her first knight, towards the old man, towards a woman of Krytian descent. The dark knight laughs at their faces, it is priceless, after all, and it is a  
_(too)_  
deep sound. It is rich, and Estelle likes it. Really, she does.

She clings tighter to his hand, his arm, when they see the rest of their group. A smile blossoms on her face.

It's painful, but she's not sure why.

Rita meets her gaze with an almost studied indifference, and shrugs.

"I saw this coming." She says, and smiles. Estelle wonders why she wishes it were forced. "I'll see you later."

When Rita leaves, she wonders why it feels as though the girl can't stand to see her. She wonders, and her chest tightens. Her immovable object- it's leaving her behind without a second thought.

The knight is silent beside her.

He's thinking, too.

**ii.**

"What are you doing?" She asks, after everything is over.

She is no longer a threat to the world. There are no longer any blastia. The mage's green eyes focus on her, older, softer, somehow. She's biting her lower lip, nibbling on it in the same way she always does when she's distracted, when she's thinking very hard; her eyes shine in the way that all genius' eyes shine when faced with a challenging puzzle.

She stands from her seat against the bed and walks over to the desk inside the room, and really, it's the first time Estelle notices that Rita's a little bit taller, now, that the girl's been growing up during the months they've spent apart.

And it makes her chest hurt. She's somehow lost her breath.

"I'm going over Judith's father's notes…there's something in the last entry that doesn't make sense to me…"

Rita's so obviously focused, just as Estelle is, but on very different things. Because there's something in the mage's movement that catches her attention.

It's not that she's sixteen. It's not that she's taller.

There's something different, but a part of Estelle is jaggedly afraid of figuring out what it is. The thoughts make her anxious.

She suddenly wants her knight to take her in his arms and never let her go.

"Estelle?"

Rita looks at her with a peculiar smile. "Are you okay?"

Her stomach lurches. She feels sick from constant motion, from the constant pounding in her head. But she's not moving. Dread grows within her, spreads like poison.

This is what it feels like to feel yourself unravel.

The spinning top across a smooth surface. The unstoppable force.

Yuri isn't it.

She leaves the room in desperation.

**i.**

Rita chases after her, catches her hand in the middle of the hallway, stops her. She appears bewildered, so terribly bewildered, and Estelle is reminded of the socially awkward teenager she had met a little over a year ago.

Back when she'd been the little, naïve noble. Back when she'd been looking for her knight, before she'd found two, before she'd ever thought that green is a beautiful color, more beautiful than blue, and more beautiful than-

She's feeling like a smashed blastia, used and unnecessary and no longer shimmering at the edges. She's shaking violently as she thinks that she's out of control, that there's something wrong with her because she has two knights and neither is the one for her.

She doesn't want them.

She doesn't know what she wants.

The hand on her arm burns as she leans forward, inexplicably, the unstoppable force to her immovable object, and- there's a molten fever in her brain as she connects.

The feeling spreads and it's the most maddening rush she's ever felt. She's stuck in a state of delirium as she attempts to get closer, ever closer, until her hands are curling around cheeks, until her fingers tangle up in hair, until-

She's pushed away.

One kiss, and Rita pulls away as if burned.

Her fist presses against her lips as if to destroy the feeling.

A bizarre pain steals across her heart. She can see it reflected in Rita's eyes.

Her heart is stuck in her throat, sick and still on fire, and she swallows thickly. She can't breathe.  
She's terrified.

Because sometimes, a knight doesn't get a princess, he gets a prince. And sometimes, the princess doesn't really want a knight, no matter how dark, or how romantic.

Sometimes-

Sometimes she just wants the mage.


End file.
